By Tiernan Ray

Mobile World Congress ended yesterday in Barcelona with a whimper — suddenly the work crews start coming by the knock down booths, and attendees are directedto the exits, politely but firmly, where the taxi lines form.

In all there was much of the same, with slight variations. The chip battle for both baseband processors and application processors (APU) was intriguing. Bob Rango, executive vice president of mobile and wireless with Broadcom (BRCM) was kind enough to spend a few minutes chatting with me at the company’s booth. He was getting ready to head up to Finland to rally the troops at the company’s baseband processor operations, which it acquired from Japanese firm Renesas Electronicsin October. Remember that this operation used to be the internal baseband business of Nokia (NOK), which at one time, as Rango points out, powered half the phones in the world, at Nokia’s peak.

“Carriers all know this baseband, it’s already been qualified,” he said, speaking to the advantages of the business. Plus, “Compare our Cat4 versus competitors is 25% lower power and and 25% smaller die size,” he points out, referring to the current generation of LTE baseband in carrier networks.

On display in the booth, a Samsung Electronics (005930KS) “Galaxy Core LTE” with that baseband, the “M320″ integrated APU-baseband. It’s as good as the year-ago Galaxy S4, but cheaper and with more compact electronics. Just fine, because the S4 is now yesterday’s news, with the debut of the S5 on Monday, which arrives around the world on April 11th.

Broadcom also was showing off a reference model, really a mock-up of its chips on a circuit board, that vendors and developers can use to prepare for the company’s forthcoming “category 6″ baseband chip. It looked rather cool, and as a working phone, it would be fun to imagine carrying the gigantic device around town as some sort retro phone thing. The phone kit was running through a Nokia-Siemens Networks Cat6 LTE base station, which is a sizable and also fun-looking bit of gear.

The continued proliferation of smartphones was enjoyable. I can understand ISI Group‘s Brian Marshall when he wrote this week that he is having “large-screen smartphone envy.”

Among the devices rivaling Apple‘s (AAPL) iPhone, the industrial design has become more sophisticated. Although some models feel just a bit too large (the HTC 6-inch “ONE Max” comes to mind), in general, larger screen phones are finding ways to minimize the bulk of casing, so that larger screens don’t necessarily mean unwieldy gizmos.

Lenovo‘s (0992HK) 5-inch “Vibe X,” running MediaTek (2454TW) chips, and the 5.5-inch “Vibe Z,” running Qualcomm (QCOM) processors, both had a nice, easy-to-hold profile. Even the Lenovo S930, at 6-inches, did not feel absurd to hold in one’s hand.

All this is obviously subjective, and others will have different responses. I was pleasantly surprised by the “mini” version of HTC’s ONE handset. At 4.3 inches in screen size, it’s not much bigger than Apple’s iPhone 5S. It has the same pleasing metal finish and styling as the ONE, and all-around a nice balance to the weight of it. Certainly one of the nieces I saw at the show.

Another in the roomy-but-sleek category is from Alcatal-onetouch, the global brand for China’s TCL Communications for every place outside the China market, the ”Idol X,” the latest in the idol lineup, at 4.7 inches on the diagonal, which runs MediaTek’s 8-core processor and promises to make you some kind of a 4K video author. Alcatel-TCL is 10th in smartphones, according to Strategy Analytics, and appears to be climbing the charts.

Qualcomm were sure to direct me to the “Nubia” line of affordable smartphones from ZTE, and they do seem quite nice. I wasn’t sure what to make of their mix of features, but with a focus on “affordable premium,” as ZTE calls it, a decent Android smartphone may show up at an increasing number of outlets around the world at a nice price.

Over at Nokia‘s booth, the wares are just a bit different, as you’d expect, and once again, Nokia finds some of the most interesting and attractive industrial designs. And the colors are quite nice, in my humble opinion. The Asha line of entry smartphones, or perhaps what you’d call high-end feature phones plus, or something, are quite remarkable in how they have incorporated easy access to prominent Internet applications such as Facebook (FB). I did not have enough time to test them out to get a real sense of whether such starter apps are a boon or a frustration for new smartphone owners, but the concept at least seems quite worthwhile.

As far as the new “Nokia X” line of Android phones, I’m not sure about the merging of Microsoft‘s (MSFT) Windows Phone and Google‘s (GOOG) Android. The user interface put on these devices is reminiscent of the “Metro” UI on Windows Phone, but only just a bit. Looking closer, it just doesn’t seem like Metro for real, and I wonder if it will please anyone, including loyal Metro users and new smartphone buyers. Time will tell.

I swung by the Nvidia (NVDA) booth where I had a chat with marketing executive Sridhar Ramaswamy about all things Tegra. Nvidia had a lower presence here than Qualcomm or MediaTek. The company showed off just one prominent new smartphone win, a French model called the “Wiko Wax,” running the company’s “Tegra 4i” with integrated baseband. Also on display was the new, follow-on version of Nvidia’s own tablet computer, the “Tegra Note 7 LTE,” with a cellular connection, for the first time, supporting Category3 LTE networks (upgradeable via software to Cat4.”)

I had some fun drawing an elephant on the tablet, as you can see in the accompanying photo. The stylus technology, developed by Nvidia, uses direction and positioning of the stylus to emulate pressure-sensitivity, allowing one to draw in many different thicknesses. It’s as good as anything I’ve ever used on a Wacom tablet, and simply a joy to work with. The Tegra Note 7 LTE has a suggested retail price of $299.

As far as phones, Ramaswamy reiterated the forecast, outlined last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, for the next Tegra, the “K1,” to arrive in 64-bit form later this year, following the 32-bit part, which should be showing up in devices in the first half of the year. The 64-bit part brings two very important PC video game technologies to mobile devices for the first time, “OpenGL 4.4,” and “Unreal Engine 4.0,” both of which will make it possible for the first time for video games to make their debut simultaneously on PC and mobile devices. Ramaswamy said several video game makers have committed to such a simultaneous debut, though he could not disclose which ones.

Ramaswamy pointed out K1′s 192 CPU “cores” will not only boost games but a variety of other functions. “Imagine if you could take a video and in real time stream it to your Ustream account?” he offers. “Or use it for real-time 3-D object recognition — point the camera at something and have the computer tell you what that is, or let you manipulate that object on-screen.”

Regarding Tegra Note, as nice as it is, I asked Ramaswamy if its existence was a sign the company was falling behind in the battle to lure tablet vendors to Tegra. Ramaswamy replied that the company “wanted to bring out a showcase for all the capabilities we have, such as the instant HDR [high dynamic range photo taking] ability, the tracking stylus capability.”

He added, “We are always working with all these partners [in tablets], and sometimes our respective timelines don’t work out well, and maybe they go with other vendors for this or that product.”

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.